Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Atari co-founder: mobile games make me want to throw my phone

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 221 posts

Re: Atari co-founder: mobile games make me want to throw my phone

#51

Post by jerf »

coldtea wrote: post #44
jerf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I'm intrigued how one is going to bring "old-school arcade sensibilities" to a system where the inputs really need to be interpreted as "a user pressed sort of hereish, sort of nowish" and when the user does that, they also have to cover some percentage of the screen to do it. Precision is not available. Not all games require precision, so it's not a fatal problem, merely just another design issue to deal with,…

> Not all games require precision, so it's not a fatal problem, merely just another design issue to deal with, but it does sound fatal to a lot of "old school arcade" ideas. Not sure what the issue is. I've used tons of old-school arcade games in the 80s. They had horrible precision joysticks, guns ("operation wolf"), etc.

Well, speaking at least for the light-gun games, I've almost never enjoyed the arcade versions, especially the ones that don't even show a crosshair on the screen showing your current aim point. I far more enjoyed using the Wiimote to aim, since it was far, far more accurate than anything I've seen in the arcade... and lo, rail shooters turn out to be pretty fun after all!

(With a Wiimote you can actually develop muscle memory... ah, I need to aim here so I put the remote here, blammo. Trudging a massive hunk of plastic bolted to the cabinet, thus having a restricted range of motion, is just nothing like freely moving a Wiimote. Seriously, if you've got a Wii and you've never tried a "light-gun game" (ironically still called that despite the term being decades obsolete now), pick one up sometime. They're cheap.)

So, at least in my case, my experience directly contradicts your claim that accuracy isn't important for that genre. Also would have to say that when the joystick is not really working correctly, I immediately leave, and when they are working correctly, I don't know what you mean by them being imprecise.

Re: Atari co-founder: mobile games make me want to throw my phone

#53

Post by blue_dinner »

jwcooper wrote: post #14

If you can get past maybe the top 50 or 100 grossing games there are a lot of really good games out there that aren't looking to leech money from you. I have plenty of games that have been worth every penny I spent with a lot of depth and strategy required in order to master them. Letterpress, Spelltower, Hearthstone, Tiny Wings, Ticket to Ride, Strategery, GD Swarm, Ridiculous Fishing, Monument Valley...I could go o…

"These games were all priced probably too low for what they offered in time played."

The marketplace has pushed prices down so low (sub $5), in-game purchases or advertisements are the only way they can make a living.

If Google/Apple cared about their developers, they would force a minimum price. This way, it wasn't a race to the bottom. The end result is either large companies using the games as a loss leader, hobbyists that are releasing games and not getting compensated, or what we see now: games slapped with tons of advertising and in-game purchases. Personally, I would rather just see a higher priced game so I don't have to deal with the spammy tactics used now.

Re: Atari co-founder: mobile games make me want to throw my phone

#54

Post by harryaka »

Tenhundfeld wrote: post #48
jwcooper wrote: post #14

If you can get past maybe the top 50 or 100 grossing games there are a lot of really good games out there that aren't looking to leech money from you. I have plenty of games that have been worth every penny I spent with a lot of depth and strategy required in order to master them. Letterpress, Spelltower, Hearthstone, Tiny Wings, Ticket to Ride, Strategery, GD Swarm, Ridiculous Fishing, Monument Valley...I could go o…

If anybody's looking for a side project, I think there's a curation opportunity here. I'd subscribe to a newsletter focused on great, non-IAP-driven iOS games. It could be weekly or monthly, with a mix of new games and classic gems that maybe aren't so well known. I'd tolerate a fair amount of advertising or sponsored content in the newsletter as long as it was clearly labeled. The key thing for me is quality . I thi…

Check out Curated, pretty much does what you're looking for: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.curated.an...

Re: Atari co-founder: mobile games make me want to throw my phone

#55

Post by Retric »

protonfish wrote: post #36
grandalf wrote: post #33

Atari 2600 games are more playable, fun, immersive, and inspirational than any games for IOS and most modern console games. If you have a few pixels to animate and want to build something fun, you think about what makes a game fun.. When you have HD video, textures, etc., you think about implementation details.

Tell that to E.T.

Having actually played E.T. it's arguably better than 'Tiny Wings' which is often thought of as a 'great' mobile game.

I mean really, you can play Tiny Wings with one finger and your eyes closed.

Re: Atari co-founder: mobile games make me want to throw my phone

#56

Post by fzzzy »

protonfish wrote: post #36
grandalf wrote: post #33

Atari 2600 games are more playable, fun, immersive, and inspirational than any games for IOS and most modern console games. If you have a few pixels to animate and want to build something fun, you think about what makes a game fun.. When you have HD video, textures, etc., you think about implementation details.

Tell that to E.T.

E.T. isn't really a bad game. Confusing and strange, but not nearly as bad as people like to claim it is.

Re: Atari co-founder: mobile games make me want to throw my phone

#57

Post by intrasight »

jwcooper wrote: post #14

If you can get past maybe the top 50 or 100 grossing games there are a lot of really good games out there that aren't looking to leech money from you. I have plenty of games that have been worth every penny I spent with a lot of depth and strategy required in order to master them. Letterpress, Spelltower, Hearthstone, Tiny Wings, Ticket to Ride, Strategery, GD Swarm, Ridiculous Fishing, Monument Valley...I could go o…

>This is almost a fluff piece to promote a developer

Clearly you do not know who is Nolan Bushnell

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Bushnell

Nolan Kay Bushnell (born February 5, 1943) is an American engineer and entrepreneur who founded both Atari, Inc. and the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza-Time Theaters chain. Bushnell has been inducted into the Video Game Hall of Fame and the Consumer Electronics Association Hall of Fame, received the BAFTA Fellowship and the Nations Restaurant News “Innovator of the Year” award, and was named one of Newsweek's "50 Men Who Changed America." Bushnell has started more than twenty companies and is one of the founding fathers of the video game industry.

Re: Atari co-founder: mobile games make me want to throw my phone

#58

Post by nibs »

pjmlp wrote: post #30
dragonbonheur wrote: post #21

When the whole mobile/app thing began with Java ME, I thought their prices would be within $10-$25 because programmers would not have to sell physical copies anymore and along came Apple selling mobile software more at $0.99-$5 and even at $5 people think software is too expensive compared to the $40+ they were paying for console games or other programs. This aggressive dilution of the monetary value of software is w…

Same thing on the desktop. Software development outside of the desktop and enterprise space is only sustainable via services/books/consulting, because no one is paying for software if they can get it for free.

Our customers are annoyed by the concept of spending $1-2k/person on licenses but have no problem with $150-200/hour billing rates, half the time of which is spent showing them how to do things for the nth time. People are funny like that. Not the worst deal from a business perspective but frustrating from an idealistic tech progress one.

Re: Atari co-founder: mobile games make me want to throw my phone

#59

Post by chillingeffect »

coldtea wrote: post #41
Goronmon wrote: post #19

Honestly, the lack of dedicated controls will never allow for mobile gaming to be anything more than a time diversion for most people. A touchscreen just isn't something that's comfortable to use for extended lengths of time, in my opinion at least.

> Honestly, the lack of dedicated controls will never allow for mobile gaming to be anything more than a time diversion for most people. Isn't gaming precisely a time diversion?

The key historical context this article omits is that they're a social time diversion. The arcades are a place facilitated by the games. Focusing on the games is like focusing on the highway in a road trip. It's about being with friends.

Phone games surely have the potential to do that, and probably some of them do, but if you look at Bushnell's other works, the restaurants, the Atarti C-380, he was trying to improve social activities via graphics/gaming.

The Nintendo CEO guy has said the same thing with respect to controller design facilitating other people to see how your hands move.

Re: Atari co-founder: mobile games make me want to throw my phone

#60

Post by porsupah »

roymurdock wrote: post #15
jwcooper wrote: post #14

If you can get past maybe the top 50 or 100 grossing games there are a lot of really good games out there that aren't looking to leech money from you. I have plenty of games that have been worth every penny I spent with a lot of depth and strategy required in order to master them. Letterpress, Spelltower, Hearthstone, Tiny Wings, Ticket to Ride, Strategery, GD Swarm, Ridiculous Fishing, Monument Valley...I could go o…

How do you discover quality games? I've found the ability to discover apps outside the top 100 to be virtually non-existent with the current app store configuration.

THere's not going to be an exhaustive source, of course, but I've found TouchArcade's reviews to be of some value, as well as their forum.

Their weekly roundup of new releases, including trailers for each, is another avenue for being able to quickly peek through what's out there - any that pique my interest, I'll open in a new tab, and see what further screenshots or user sentiments are to be found.

http://toucharcade.com/

Post reply on HN